THE COURT: Can you tell me, for example, who directs the litigation here in California? Who makes the decision as to whether or not cases are dismissed or settled for how much money? Can you tell me that?

MS. ROSING: Your Honor, I can't testify.

THE COURT: "Yes" or "no", please. Because we need to move through this. Can you tell me that?

MS. ROSING: I personally cannot tell you that, your Honor.

THE COURT: All right. Do you know whether or not there is another Alan Cooper other than the one that was
here at the last hearing?

MS. ROSING: I am not aware of another Alan Cooper, your Honor.

THE COURT: All right. Good. What happens to the settlement money?

MS. ROSING: Your Honor, obviously, I represent Mr. Duffy and Ms. Van Den Hemel. I don't have personal knowledge of any of this.

THE COURT: Why weren't notices of related cases filed? Who made the decision to hide from the court the fact that all of these cases were related.

MS. ROSING: I do have a judicially noticeable document on that, your Honor, where the Northern District declined to relate the cases.

THE COURT: That is a different thing. That is consolidating them.

MS. ROSING: It is actually an order declining to relate them.

THE COURT: Same plaintiff, same film, same causes of action, and they are not related? Excuse me? Okay. Tell me this. Who made the decision not to disclose to the court the fact that the law firms have a financial interest in the outcome of this litigation?

MS. ROSING: Your Honor, there is no evidence before this court at all that the law firm or any, well, certainly, my clients, Paul Duffy or Angela Van Den Hemel, have any financial interest in the outcome of this litigation.

considering what these try to do to so-called 'defendants' that are 'accused of wrong doing, with nothing usually for proof other than an IP address', i think it would be only fitting if at a minimum, the same fate was bestowed on to them.

no one appreciates what a punishment is like until the same punishment is bestowed on them. that's why i keep hoping on hope that someone as rich and powerful as Google grows a set and goes against the entertainment industries!

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Hilarious! Do they really expect to get it both ways? They can say whatever the hell they want without having to answer a single question?
What do they do when they have to go grocery shopping? Do they claim they have the right to pay for what they want and not have to go through the register?

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Yeah, actually they probably do expect it both ways.

This is one of the reasons copyright trolls like them almost always drop any case where their target is willing to take them to court over it, because they really don't like having to answer questions put to them, or being forced to present their 'evidence'.

Unfortunately for Prenda(and fortunately for everyone else), this time they ran right into a judge unwilling to just accept them at their word, which explains the blanket silence, incredibly vague answers when they have to say something, and the crazy lengths they've gone to to avoid even having to show up at all.

Court transcripts as Paranoia dialogue...

The poor, hapless clones (the other people role-playhing) always thought that if they phrase the question just the right way, they'll get the information they need to, er, survive to the end of the game.

One of my main jobs as GM was to invent, usually on the fly, all sorts of reasons why "that information is above your security clearance".

That Prenda Hearing dialogue sounded like half the games I ran... Good times.

The judge needs to make them give clear responses that indicate the reason for not giving up information, even in their 'I dunno' responses.

It needs to be clear whether the representing attorney 'can't say' because of attorney client privileges or because they do not actually have the information. The ambiguous phrases like 'I can't say' are quite maddening. The judge should not have to pull each little detail for every question. Are they really trying to force him into questioning every detail of a reply? Such as every time Rosing responds, ask every time: 'can you 'not say' because you are the representing lawyer?', 'can you 'not say' because you do not actually know the information being asked?', 'if you do not know the information, do you know whether it exists or not', 'if you do not know the information, do you know whether your client knows if it exists or not'

Then enforce the 'Yes or No' response. Hell, just state 'I can't say' will be taken as having knowledge of the information and not being able to respond while 'I do not know' will be taken as not having any knowledge of the subject of the question. Define the ambiguous statements they are trying to hide behind, then hold them accountable for their statements when you finally dig up the truth.

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Man, it must suck to have your heroes be exposed as the scum they actually are, so I can understand why you'd be so angry at the continued coverage of the Prenda circus, but no matter how much you flail about, trying to make is all seem insignificant, the curtain has been pulled back, and now everyone is getting to enjoy the song and dance Prenda are putting on.

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The throw-away fact (in your eyes, at least) that they appear to be extortionists, also appearing to be operating outside of existing law, seems to have escaped your attention. I suppose you would want a return to the lawless wild west and send out lynching parties to people merely accused of a crime and the posse to bend every fact to suit themselves. I despair of an outright troll as you. Get a life.

Is nice to see the judge focusing on matters not totally foreseen by me. Like that good kind of surprise and want to hang with Judge Wright cuz I might accidentally learn something. Oops!

The judge was clear in mentioning fraud going further to state that this hearing was about ,attorney misconduct such misconduct which I think brings discredit to the profession.

What did delightfully surprise me was the judges determined recognition that all of the shell firms were one and the same with Prendaa. More surprising was using such recognition to point out that ,notices of related cases, have not been filed throughout the Prendaa universe of shell firm lawsuits. Sounds like reasonable charges to me.

More seemingly binding was the comment Who made the decision not to disclose to the court the fact that the law firms have a financial interest in the outcome of this litigation? Financial interest is quite an important link.

As a layperson it would totally piss me off if the firms represented by a legal firm were themselves owned by that same legal firm. The term fleecing comes to mind. It also is a clear motive to anyone without a minimum of scruples might want it covered up.

Its kind of hilarious that they would be able to get another court to not recognize such a cozy arrangement. A lot filings are just taken for granted without any high level of proof other than what is submitted. Makes one wonder what was transcribed or not during such a filing. Possibly submitted in between a dozen or so other more normal pieces of paperwork during a busy moment? Who knows? Just another example of funny paperwork? Might even be used as evidence of willful misdirection.

The event was not without some good old fashioned follow the money detective work in trying a bit to untangle the complex network of shell firms and which one gets the money. (wonder if off shore accounts are used?)

Without direct testimony the judge must piece together the Prendaa puzzle with his own staff. Is hard to see progress without a search warrant or subpoena issued to a lot of funky shell firms. Bank records, corporate officers, assets, etc.

And all this is in addition to what was discussed earlier. The story unfolds as the mysteries are explored and as in all real life drama the plot is a thing of past tense revealed only after the fact.

To me it is very telling the answers Mrs. Rosing give. There can not be but one of two reasons. Either the clients did not inform Mrs. Rosing or they did and she can't answer without making it worse.

I once heard a saying that goes like this...

When the law is on your side, you pound on the law.
When the facts are on your side, you pound on the facts.
When you have neither, you pound on the table.

This all boils down to table pounding through the whole mess. Now that they have the chance to speak for themselves, suddenly it's the 5th. It screams louder to me than an air horn what is going on. I am sure the judge, having been on these cases from the start is better informed than I.

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"To me it is very telling the answers Mrs. Rosing give. There can not be but one of two reasons. Either the clients did not inform Mrs. Rosing or they did and she can't answer without making it worse."

Well it seems to be both. She gotten no information concerning the ring leader or who it is among them, and she's the one who has to answer to the judge because the assholes are leaving her out to dry. Clearly by her tone she was doing her best to defend them, but in the end I think she realized there was no way to. As a defense lawyer will tell you, Ms. Rosing was legally bound to defend her clients as beat she could. Unfortunately for her, Prenda won't give her the information she needs to defend them.